WASHINGTON - The Obama administration is rejecting a demand from a senior Republican lawmaker for the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations to resign.

Rep. Peter King of New York said last week Susan Rice's explanation of the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, was a foreign policy failure.

He told CNN Rice should resign.

Rice said five days after the attack that there was no evidence it was premeditated. Officials now say it was a planned terrorist attack distinct from the mob protests in the Arab world over a U.S.-made Internet video ridiculing Islam.

Still, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Monday that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton believes Rice has done a "superb job."